One aspect of iOS I wish they'd just fix....

[xraydoc]

Umm, there is no issue... Tap the chat field and the keyboard hides itself,

No, it doesn't.

 

[Xenc]

A workaround that might be slightly faster than that for you is to tap the "Edit" button in the top right corner. That's what I do - it shows a list of all the messages so you can delete or forward - and it moves the keyboard down. So that's an acceptable-ish fix until they really get it figured out, that's probably faster than backing out of the message and going back in.

This is a good tip.

 

[dwguertin]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

Edit opps, I see this has been answered.

I'm either the biggest idiot of all time, or this is one incredibly overlooked annoyance on the iPhone:

When viewing a text message on iOS you can't close the virtual keyboard to make the messages viewable on the entire screen. I miss the little "back" button on my Android phone that would make the keyboard disappear. It's unbelievably annoying when you have a tiny space to scroll up 30 messages to reread something.

It'd have been so easy for them to add a little "close" button or swipe gesture to close the keyboard when reading text messages

Hopefully I'm not an idiot and just haven't figured out how to close the keyboard without exiting and reopening the message.

I can do what I think that you are talking about. To remove keyboard when reading texts. I hit the edit button. Then the keyboard goes away. Then when you want the keyboard again just hit the home button.

 

[The LPT]

they should just make it so you swipe down on the keyboard, and it goes away. That's what it was like when I had my BB Storm 2. That was one of few nice features about that phone.

 

[xraydoc]

they should just make it so you swipe down on the keyboard, and it goes away. That's what it was like when I had my BB Storm 2. That was one of few nice features about that phone.

I bet RIM patented the "swipe down to hide onscreen keyboard" process and methodology.

I'm half joking and half serious. Too many stupid software patents is why devices like these will never be "perfect."

 

[FubsyGamr]

All that is needed is for the keyboard to hide when you tap on the messages area like how it works in other 3rd party apps (ex. official Twitter client). Easy and intuitive. Heck, it's probably only a few lines of code.

Yup, it's actually not even a few lines of code (well, it is, but not specifically). It requires the developer to but a big "button" that fills up the entire screen, behind everything else, that's only job is to "minimize the keyboard". You then put the same command (minimize keyboard) into any other button on the screen (e.g. Edit), and voila, anywhere you press on the screen hides the keyboard.

Is it me, or do certain keyboards (apps) have different configurations. Some keyboards have the ".com" and "@" sign. In certain apps, you can use the keyboard and a "Done" button allows you to close the keyboard. Why are they not all standard?

This, again, is an option that comes standard with the SDK, when programming an app. You can insert a "text box" like space, and you can tell it to be open to receive input from the user. Apple then supplies 6 or 7 different keyboard layouts, as well as the default. For example, if I wanted to add a box for you to put your email address, if I don't specify a specific keyboard, it will use the default. However, I could instead specify that I want the "web" keyboard, and it will take away space, put @ and .com in it's place, as well as a backslash '/'.

You can also change specific buttons, like the 'return' key, to instead say "Done", "Enter", "Return", "Next", and a few other options.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

Is it me, or do certain keyboards (apps) have different configurations. Some keyboards have the ".com" and "@" sign. In certain apps, you can use the keyboard and a "Done" button allows you to close the keyboard. Why are they not all standard?

I definitely don't like the messenger keyboard hiding all the text messages.

because lacking a dynamic keyboard would defeat the entire purpose of a software keyboard.

 

[QuarterSwede]

what if you're typing a lengthy message and want to copy and paste a previous text to include? You don't want the keyboard going away then, as you're not done typing. I agree there needs to be a way to close it but I'd rather it be a button on the keyboard

The text field would still be visible at the bottom of the screen like when you first start Messages and it's not already in the background. Issue solved.

 

[elhungarian]

I want a mark all emails as read feature. Seems like an easy thing to add.
I hate how I can't close an app for real when I quit an app. Sometimes I just launch an app for a short time and don't feel like clearing my running or truly "paused" apps.

 

[wesk702]

Should be like air mouse where u just shake the phone down and the keyboard would slide down.

 

[wordoflife]

Nothing world shattering, but it would be convenient to have a 5 second window where you could cancel an outgoing message.

It only takes 5 seconds for the opposite party to receive your text message once sent. I guess it could be a(n) [optional] feature though - to purposely hold the text message 5 seconds back before sending.

 

[DDustiNN]

Oddly enough, this is one of my favorite features of biteSMS. I also like the inclusion of contact photos, and the notification icon in the status bar. It's the little things that count, haha.